Monday, September 18, 2006

Expired

My beloved and I planned a relaxing weekend getaway to visit Kindred Spirit and Sammy in Kansas City. We purchased our airline tickets months in advance.We printed up our own boarding passes the night before.

The day of our trip, we left in plenty of time to leave our car in long term parking and still arrive 90 minutes before take-off as recommended.We hopped aboard the shuttle that would drop us off at the door to our terminal.Or so we thought.Neither of us paid any attention to the destination of the shuttle we chose.It was not until it arrived at terminal E that we realized that it was not going anywhere near terminal A, which was our destination.Bailing out at terminal E, we ran half a block down the sidewalk and tried to get on two more wrong shuttles before landing on the shuttle that would deposit us at the door to terminal A.

At this point we still felt pretty good, that is, until we checked in our luggage and showed our identification and boarding passes to the lady behind the counter.She peered over her glasses.“I’m sorry sir.It’s expired.”“What’s expired?” my beloved asked.“Your driver’s license,” she answered.“Apparently you had a birthday four days ago.Well your license expired then. That means your boarding pass is no good.”“No good?”“No good. I’ll have to print you another one; and you really need to get that license renewed.”

She printed another boarding pass and attached a sticker to it.This sticker flagged my beloved as the person who is attempting to board a plane as a passenger with an expired driver’s license.As a result, while I sailed through security both to and from Kansas City, he was pulled over and searched, first with a wand, then by hand.

My beloved chose to be good-natured about the whole thing.His driver’s license is, after all, expired, and while I don’t understand the connection between an expired driver’s license and terrorist activity, I am deeply appreciative of our government’s attempts to protect us in the air.

It just goes to show that no matter how well we plan, things happen that are beyond our control.What is within our control is how we respond. As the apostle Paul wrote from behind bars:

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”Philippians 2:5